Missing
by ImDiffrentSoWhat
Summary: I was personally sad that the second episode of the second season didn't have Belle in it. So in order to deal with a full week without knowing if Belle would be back I made this story. Without Belle, Rumple is missing more to his life then just a girl.


Belle was his life. He knew that from the beginning. He couldn't pin it down but one moment she was just a caretaker and then she was precious to him. And getting more precious by the day. She gave him what his life had always been missing. His marriage had been one of convince and had no passion, his wife had been in love with someone else and honestly detested him but the family had insisted. After they had wed they had lived sleeping in different cots. They were poor and owned only one bed, the marital bed and they had both slept in the bed until she had become impregnated. The job done he took to sleeping on a cot of straw and left over wool that he had spun while her and his son slept on the only bed they had. Eventually a neighbor's youngest child had grown out of a crib the woodsman had fashioned and so gave it to the young couple. It wasn't long after that she left him running away with a blacksmith who she had loved.

Though he did not love her he always felt like a failure around her, both as a provider and a lover as a husband should be. However somehow Belle, Belle who expected nothing, made him feel like perhaps he could have been a provider if he had a chance to marry her first. She was such a content and good creature, any man would be lucky to have her as his wife, she was intelligent and though she wanted to see the world and that was not something he could ever give her now or then. Yet that was of no consequence to her, she had her fill of adventure by reading. He understood reading yes, it was an enjoyably quiet activity. But he had never had the pure passion which she derived from it. With her ways he found himself getting new pleasure from the same books that had already started to bore him. His favorite thing to do on stormy nights was to sit in a chair by a fire with her near, wrapped in a jewel green blanket in a near chair by the fire also and she would read to him.

After she was gone all the books were locked away never to see the light of day again. He hated to even look at the place they were or the chairs he and she had once occupied. He refused to read anything, any book. He tried at first, to read in her memory. But no matter what he read all he could ever think about is how much she would love it.

Rumpelstiltskin had always loved tea. It was a commoner beverage and had always helped to warm him on cold winter nights and cool him on hot summer days. He had always insisted on using the cup Belle had chipped, because when she had chipped it the cup was only a cup but now it was more. She had asked him once and he told her that it was because it was his, that it's chip was what made it unique, that it was beautiful and odd and it was something he cherished.

He had not been talking about the cup.

So the brew that he loved so much became archaic to even contemplate. So he had not bothered with contemplating it and had gone on to wines and water things safely away from Belle. She was gone forever, and so was any type of comfort.

After he had ordered her out of his castle she had started to leave but come back to give him a peace of her mind. He knew then that she was giving him a chance to change his mind, to call her back, but he couldn't bring himself to, ever the coward. He had left the curtains off and allowed the Dark Castle to be bathed in light while he believed her whole and healthy and happy somewhere away from him. After what the vile queen had said he had smashed everything he could get his hands on but her chipped cup and he had nailed the drapes back on the windows, this time with as many nails as he could fit on.

Belle was dead, gone forever. He had lost her, the brief flicker of light. And so he bathed himself in an ocean of darkness.

The time that Rumpelstiltskin was the Dark One he was basically an imp, high pitched with near constant giggles. After Belle they had toned down and were forced. Still enough to scare people but never the same after her.

After he lost his son Rumpelstiltskin was sure he'd never be able to love anyone ever again. He was wrong, he fell in love with Belle, though he had never loved his wife so that made sense. He loved her and with her by his side, his love of life came out. He started to love the flowers, the trees, the very air in which he breathed. He felt an almost joy with her near him. But when he lost her he lost the joy and came to realize that love was not meant for him.

For twenty eight years he had lived his life as such. Joyless, loveless, and sickening. He hated who he was. Merely a hollow man trying desperately to get his son back. That was his only chance and he hoped he could at least have his Bae. He knew that the boy would have adored Belle, that she could of possibly been everything that the boy's mother was never around to be. He had missed her every day for over three decades.

And just as quickly as he had lost her, their she was again. Looking at him inside his shop like a hesitant schoolgirl. Beautiful and weary. At first he though himself insane. But quickly he found his mind to sound for frenzy and he had her again. His brief flicker of light, this time he swore he'd keep her, his little candle.

With her everything changed, the books came out of their sad cases and were proudly on display. Belle took a natures pleasure in organizing them just so in his shop that they all complemented each other and the places they were, it was obvious to anyone who bothered to look that they must have been placed by someone who loves books. He started to drink tea every day for a nightcap with Belle, and she remarked at him still using her chipped cup. He could plainly see the happiness in her eyes and smile for that fact. The first thing she did to his shop after organizing all of the books just so was to look around and remark how he allowed all of it to become so filthy. She took to scrubbing down the entire store, though he assured her their was no need to. She insisted and as she was washing the window turned to him.

"Did you rub this dirt in?" She asked him awe struck.

"Yes." He said, he wasn't serious, he could remember the curtains. She could to.

"Suppose it's better then nailing the curtains in." She muttered as she started to devote all of her strength to the task, that lovely spark of determination in her eyes.

Rumpelstiltskin was shocked the first time he laughed while being in Storybrooke. Belle had been busy cooking them both something to eat, hamburgers, a new recipe in existence in this new world that she had learned from Mary Margret who assumed that the poor girl never learned since she's been in the hospital most her life. Belle had been cooking and he had been watching her, unable to take his eyes off her because even though she had been with him for a few days he still couldn't help but fear he was merely dreaming. She turned to him with a smirk that made the imp in him shudder and raised a honey brown eyebrow in mischief.

"Rum, your looking at me as if I'm dinner." And though he blushed, he laughed. The first laugh in twenty eight years and the first geniuen one since the last day he saw her in their world. He had never stopped loving her, had never forgotten her. He didn't deny himself falling for another, it was simply unable to be done. He hadn't loved anyone or anything, the only two things he ever loved were his son Bae and his Belle. So though he had never stopped it still felt as if he started loving her afresh.

What a idiot he had once been to think her incapable of loving him. To push her away when he should of pulled her close. Hopefully though, this time they will not make the same mistake. Because even though he had not been able to do many things with her the true thing he had not been able to do with her, the only thing, was live.


End file.
